The Dangling Conversation
by Xtina Jones
Summary: "Like a poem poorly written/We are verses out of rhythm/Couplets out of rhyme/In syncopated time/And the dangling conversation/And the superficial sighs/Are the borders of our lives" How Will and MacKenzie fall into sync again; a snapshot survey of their lives. Spans pre-Season 1 through Season 2.


Okay, so I know I have a couple Newsroom stories floating around on here that I need to get back to, but this idea has been in my head for quite some time and it needed to come out.

This will be a three part story, maybe four, focusing on the inner thoughts/monologues of Will and MacKenzie during points on their journey back to each other. The song lyrics and lines of poetry included weave everything together (this will become more clear in the next chapter).

With that, I do not own The Newsroom, poetry by Emily Dickinson, poetry by Robert Frost, or any Simon and Garfunkel songs.

Enjoy.

* * *

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

_Hello darkness, my old friend  
__I__'__ve come to talk with you again  
__Because a vision softly creeping  
__Left its seeds while I was sleeping  
__And the vision that was planted in my brain  
__Still remains  
__Within the sound of silence_

New York City, 2007

He pours himself another glass of whiskey. It's his fourth one of the evening, but he's aiming to finish the bottle.

The show tonight was awful. Not because he'd screwed up, though he'd come close. He found it hard to focus on things like work when there was an endless movie reel playing his head.

Hence the whiskey.

The show was awful because he'd stopped trying. He'd stopped caring. He'd stopped pushing himself and his viewers to be better, be smarter, be _stronger_.

It had been a fast, steep, downward slope after her departure. He hated to admit that. So he didn't. He ignored glaring problems with himself and with the show. He gave up on having relationships with his staff. He abandoned his principles and his values.

He just _didn't give a fuck_.

He finishes the fourth whiskey and pours the fifth. The glass in his hand is superfluous at this point, but it helps him make drinking the whole bottle seem like a normal thing, not an act of desperation or self-destruction.

He continues to stare out the full-length glass windows of his new apartment at the never-sleeping city. While life bustles on beneath him and around him in the night, he hears none of it. The windows and walls block out the sounds. His apartment is sterile and unwelcoming. He likes that.

On the glass windows he sees the projections of his mind: a dark-haired woman, beautiful in her ferocity and passion for life; a dark-haired man, cruel and taunting in his actions. He sees them together in ways he never wanted to consider, in ways that torture him in moments of waking and sleeping. The images never stop playing.

He feels his wounds most deeply in the darkness, when he sits alone in his glass and concrete fortress and lets his mind wander. He lets his memories of her invade and twist his heart as the harsh and unforgiving silence of his life taunts him.

He places his glass down and picks up the bottle. There's no use in pretending anymore.

_No one dare  
__Disturb the sound of silence_

* * *

IF I CAN STOP

_If I can stop one heart from breaking,  
__I shall not live in vain;  
__If I can ease one life the aching,  
__Or cool one pain,  
__Or help one fainting robin  
__Unto his nest again,  
__I shall not live in vain._

Atlanta, 2007

She decides to go to the Middle East for reasons that are personal and professional. She'll be the first to admit that, but she'll never reveal the extent of her personal reasons, how it's not just a desire to try something new, or to do the news _right_, or to bring the truth to the people, or to uphold her values and morals. She can say all that to anyone who asks, can repeat it and recite it until she almost believes it herself.

No, she willingly goes into a war zone because that's the life she deserves now. It's her own self-imposed exile.

She broke a lot of things back in New York, things she's unsure she can ever repair. But in Atlanta she finds Jim Harper. He is young and ambitious and adorably awkward and she sees a little bit of herself in him. She sees the person she was ten years ago when everything was still new and the world was bright and she naively believed in things without doubting them.

So she takes Jim with her because he's kind and sweet and damn good at his job and he's the younger brother she never had. And she can't let Jim end up like her. She can't let him repeat her mistakes. He's too _good_, too _pure_, too undeserving of living a life like hers.

Jim's protection, Jim's success, Jim's happiness becomes her obligation, her secondary mission in the Middle East and afterward. That's what older siblings do, they venture down the unknown path, blaze the trail, and then report back.

Don't do this, don't be like me.

Peshawar, 2010

She gets stabbed and Jim gets shot and they spend two years jumping from war zone to war zone. Mutually they know when the end to their adventure draws near. Somewhere between all the sleepless nights and the violence and the missed holidays back home and the constant state of anxiety and the death and the hard, dusty floors they know it's time.

She gets an email from Charlie Skinner and then a satellite phone call. He'd like her to return to ACN, to _News Night_. Needs her to, actually. And she knows he does; she's seen the show sporadically while embedded. She feels primarily responsible for the show's downfall, though its lead anchor has always needed a bit of a push to be at his best. There's no one there to give him that.

She politely asks about details and contracts and demands a job for Jim, a damn good one for the man who saved her life. She slips in a few questions about him along the way to test the waters and read the situation. A heap of mixed emotions swirls inside her while she thinks on it, but in the end she agree to return just like she knew she would.

Her duty is still to Jim, her vow to protect him from heartbreak and the cruelness of the world stronger than ever. But now she has an additional duty, another purpose, a new vow to keep, this one to the man she destroyed.

She'll be damned if she lets him fall any further.

* * *

FIRE AND ICE

_Some say the world will end in fire,  
__Some say in ice.  
__From what I__'__ve tasted of desire  
__I hold with those who favor fire.  
__But if it had to perish twice,  
__I think I know enough of hate  
__To say that for destruction ice  
__Is also great  
__And would suffice._

New York, 2010

She literally walks back into his life one day when he's unprepared and not expecting it. Her reappearance does funny things to his heart and his mind. He's not sure how he's supposed to act around her, this woman who broke him, drove him into the darkest places. So he opts for hating her, or trying to. He opts for coldness and harsh words and barbs that remind her of what she did, of her sin.

He tries to be a stone, tries to be hard and unfeeling because she can't just come back and start over. She can't try to fix him or _want_ to fix him. It's not her right anymore.

Yet as the days slowly creep along he encounters moments in which the ice around his heart cracks a little bit and fights to melt away. He feels warm again, feels more like a person and less like a stony edifice. When these moments come upon him he forces himself to remember, to replay what happened three years ago.

He can't forget it, can't forgive it.

And so he lets the hate back in, lets the ice reform around his heart. He chooses to do things to her that he knows he will regret later. But in the moment they make him feel vindicated, or at least that's what he's supposed to feel.

She hurt him, damnit. She betrayed him. Shouldn't she feel some of his pain in return?

All's fair in love and war, so they say.


End file.
